Simply put: yes, it is.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the show and I’d watch it forever if that was sustainable. There are certainly elements which have stood the test of time – the show looks amazing. Everything from the locations to the shots to the costumes is absolutely perfect. The locations give the show a brilliant sense of scale, the shots capture the high-end glamour of a world-class assassin, and the costumes give us an insight into characters before they even act. Jodie Comer’s wardrobe, in particular, is incredible – her colourful, flamboyant style is iconic and instantly recognisable.
Killing Eve started to dip its toes into the waters of ridiculousness
For all that good, though, things have been lost along the way. The first season ended with Eve stabbing Villanelle and similarly, the second season ended with Villanelle shooting Eve (couple goals, right…) and yet they both made miraculous recoveries from their injuries. I’m glad they both made it, but this did lower the stakes for them. A show which contains so many unpredictable characters, who cross and double-cross each other, needs to be unpredictable, and unfortunately, it seemed obvious throughout the third season that they’d both be fine. Fortunately, high stakes are something which final seasons do very well.
For the final season, Killing Eve needs to get back to its roots and explore the relationship that makes it so appealing: Eve and Villanelle. In many ways, the third season felt more like an ensemble cast than the first two seasons, with new characters introduced and old characters expanded. Honestly, though, do we need to know so much about Konstantin’s daughter, Irina? The characters seemed a bit more like caricatures too – Carolyn was the archetypal emotionally repressed career woman, Dasha was the conniving moustache-twirling villain – Killing Eve has always juggled comedy with its bleak realism, but it started to dip its toes into the waters of ridiculousness.
Eve and Villanelle have spent an astonishingly short amount of time together onscreen
In the final season, we need to see a lot more of Eve and Villanelle. Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer have such great chemistry and the characters are both brilliant, but so far they’ve spent an astonishingly short amount of time together onscreen. It was pleasant to see Eve and Villanelle having an intimate dance in the season finale of season 3, but it's much the same as we’ve seen throughout Killing Eve. There have been hints at their relationship and just how complex their feelings are towards each other, but it hasn’t really been fully explored yet.
The final season has a lot to live up to. It could try to answer all of our questions about the Twelve and the league of evil exes (maybe I’m thinking of something else) but what audiences are really invested in is the dynamic between its two central characters. The brilliant thing about Eve and Villanelle is that there is no telling just where their relationship is going to get them, viewers are desperate to see what the conclusion will be, but there can only be so much teasing before the back and forth becomes stale.
Eventually, the cat has to catch the mouse. Or maybe the mouse has to catch the cat. Or maybe the mouse has to run off into the sunset with the cat where they both live happily ever after. We’ll find out in 2022...
